


I Wanna Live These Times With You

by bestliars



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Minnesota Wild, foot, mangled ear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-03
Updated: 2013-12-03
Packaged: 2018-01-03 08:43:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1068428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bestliars/pseuds/bestliars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ryan is <i>not<i> staring at Zach’s foot, but he could be. This is a very, very, very good thing.</i></i></p>
            </blockquote>





	I Wanna Live These Times With You

**Author's Note:**

> Stellarer handed me her stats notebook to pass notes in the car. I handed back four pages of defensemen having feelings. Also, apparently I’m really predictable. 
> 
> Thanks to Stellarer for betaing and being magic. <3
> 
> Title from the song “These Times With You” by Dead Moon.

They lose to the Avalanche. It’s the third loss in a row. In the past three games they’ve scored two goals—or really, three, if you count Zach’s goal in Saint Louis that shouldn’t have gotten waved off. Ryan’s counting it. He had to listen to Zach’s very reasonable rant about how it should have been a goal, how it was the wrong call, how he didn’t play it with a high stick! Really, he didn’t!

Ryan listened and agreed and worried about Zach’s foot.

Zach didn’t complain about his foot, just the disallowed goal, even though his foot must have hurt. He blocked a shot with his foot and Zach fell face first down to the ice, feet in the air. Ryan wasn’t that concerned when Zach went down, but he started to worry when Zach didn’t pop right up.

Zach didn’t need help getting off the ice, but he went straight down the tunnel. Ryan spent the rest of the period worrying. Zach insisted on trying to play in the second, but he couldn’t make it more than a couple shifts. He was off with the trainers in the second intermission. There wasn’t anything Ryan could do. Zach was already showered, dressed, and talking to the press in one shoe and one sock after the game. There wasn’t any chance for Ryan to ask if he was alright until they were on the way out of building. 

Zach said it didn’t hurt too much. 

The doctor in Saint Louis who looked at the first x-rays thought it was broken. 

That night Zach explained at length that it should have been a good goal and then clung to Ryan while they slept. Ryan agreed with him, said the refs got it wrong. He held on to Zach, and tried not to worry too much.

Back in Minnesota their own docs called it a foot contusion, and said he’d be out 2-3 weeks. Contusion is just a fancy word for bruise, and Zach practiced the next day. He missed a game, but he and played tonight. What do doctors even know, nothing.

Zach played tonight, he even played well. It must have hurt. Ryan doesn’t know the details, but he knows Zach is on some pretty good painkillers, the kind where Ryan might have wondered whether Zach can even feel his foot at all. Ryan’s had the real good painkillers before. He’s played with broken ribs, and hardly ever felt it, not during the game, with drugs and adrenaline coursing through his system. That’s all going to go away now that the game is over.

They’re going to get on the plane, and Zach’s going to start to feel it, and Ryan will be able to see the pain on his face, and there’s nothing Ryan will be able do to make it hurt less.

Ryan’s accepted that he spends a lot of time staring at Zach. That just happens. Admittedly it’s normally not quite like this. Ryan is normally thinking about how Zach’s pretty, and looking at his face, not looking at Zach’s foot and thinking about how nice it would be to take Zach to the farm (not a compound, jeeze, shut up) and wrap him up in quilts and keep him safe. But that’s an alright thing to think, not totally weird. Or maybe Ryan isn’t even staring at Zach’s foot, he’s just staring at the floor over there. No one could prove otherwise.

Ryan likes to think he’s subtle about his starring. The team more-or-less knows about him and Zach, but it isn’t a thing they talk about directly. And no one needs to know about how much he’s fretting over a foot contusion. He _really_ doesn’t want Zach to know.

He’s probably not nearly as subtle as he hopes.

Spurg is sitting in his own stall, right next to Ryan’s. Scandi’s own stall is further away, past Brods on the other side, but he’s standing right there, talking to Spurg. Ryan’s looking past them to stare at Zach’s feet.

Scandi’s voice draws his attention away from fretting, and back to the game they just played. “So, Sutes, anyone ever tell you about the last time McLeod did this to a Wild defenseman?”

Ryan shakes his head. McLeod’s hit on Brods was pretty bad, although the shotless five minute power play that followed was almost as ugly. Ryan doesn’t know what previous run Scandi’s referencing, it must have happened before he was with the Wild.

“Okay, so let me tell you about why I hate Cody McLeod,” Scandi starts.

Spurg cuts him off. “I really don’t think you have to tell this story.”

“No, I think it’ll help,” Scandi says. “It was 2011, the game the day after Christmas. Mikko’s first game back after breaking his finger. And this one—” Here Scandi points and Spurg, who’s making a face like he wishes his partner would stop talking “—he gets boarded by Cody McLeod and goes down hard.”

“And it hurt a lot, but I only missed a few games, and I’m fine now.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t know that then. You needed to get helped off the ice, and I was stuck standing there. Like, right after, I shoved at McLeod, but then you weren’t getting up, and the refs were there, and Mikko skated over, and you still weren’t getting up, and all I could do was just stand there.”

“What else were you supposed to do?” Spurg asks. There’s a rhythm to this conversation, not quite comfortable, but worn in, like they’ve had it couple times before.

“Nothing. I could just stand there, but it didn’t feel good.” They’re looking each other in the eye, and not saying anything. Ryan takes the pause as a chance to glance back at Zach’s foot. Hidden in a sock, it looks just fine from here. The swelling has gone down, and the brightly colored bruises are all covered.

“But anyway, to get to the point,” Scandi continues. (“Oh, there’s a point? I’m shocked,” Spurg interrupts.) “The point is that I couldn’t do anything, just stand there, but that’s better than not being there would have been. Like, a week later I was sent to Houston, and while I was there I kept thinking, oh god, what if someone else does something stupid and Jared gets hurt again, and I won’t be there to see it and ask if you’re alright and nod along when you lie to me.”

“I was fine when I came back,” Spurg objects.

“Sure you were,” Scandi says, while he shakes his head and smiles.

“I still don’t see how this story has a point,” Spurg says. Ryan isn’t sure he sees it either.

“The point is that it sucks to have someone you care about get hurt, but it’s better when you’re there to see it and question their decisions than to be somewhere else.” Scandi stops looking at Spurg to make eye contact with Ryan. “I thought that you could appreciate that idea — that it really helps to be in the same place.”

Ryan nods slowly. “Yeah, I guess I can.”

“I still don’t understand why you had to bring up McLeod,” Spurg says.

“Well, because I hate him, and he didn’t get suspended for when he hit you, and he won’t get suspended for what he did to Brods tonight—”

“Which wasn’t as bad,” Spurg says.

“Sure, not as bad, but still: I hate him. And I don’t like thinking about the time you were concussed, so that’s out as an example.”

Scandi doesn’t mention how Spurg once blocked a Shea Weber slapshot with his foot, probably because it would only upset them all. That’s very considerate of him.

Spurg and Scandi keep talking, going, back and forth, arguing about something. Ryan has stopped paying attention. He’s staring at Zach, not just his feet, but at all of him, his strong legs, and nice shoulders. Zach looks upset by the loss, but still beautiful, in a sad sort of way. Ryan always think Zach looks beautiful.

Zach catches him looking. Their eyes meet, and Zach smiles. Ryan smiles back at him. It might hurt now, but they’re going to be fine.

Zach’s foot will be fine, just like Zach already says it is. Before long that will be the actual truth. Until then Ryan can bring him things so he doesn’t have to get up, and hold his hand, and Zach can lean against him to sleep on the plan to Denver. Ryan has to look away before he gets swept away.

He looks back to Spurg and Scandi, who are still bickering, seemingly about whose injuries have caused the other more distress.

Spurg says, “When you were concussed and missed our rookie dinner.”

Scandi counters with, “When you got hurt in Europe and didn’t answer your phone.”

“When I was in Europe and you didn’t tell me you were hurt, and I found out when Kass emailed me to tell you to stop whining.”

“When you missed game seven of the Final and I had to play with someone else and then we lost.”

“You missed the whole first round!” Spurg objects.

“That was four games! You swept Peoria. If it had gone to five I would have played. Probably. Six for sure.”

“How about when your ear got all fucked up, it was so bad to look at, and no one knew for sure that you had a concussion until practice the next day when you were loopy as fuck and _said things_.”

“What did you say?” Ryan asks, putting himself back into the conversation.

Marco blushes and looks away.

Jared laughs. “He called me adorable. And tiny. And perfect. And then he suggested some things that I won’t repeat.”

“Yes, well…” Marco’s kind of flailing, gesturing widely. “I still think those things. And they turned out to be good suggestions, eventually. Once I was better. You had fun.”

Jared’s still laughing. “Well, yeah, but at the time I was worried about your brain and about to die of embarrassment.”

“Well, I’m sorry, or whatever. I’ll try not to get hit in the head with a puck again.”

“Good,” Spurg says.

It’s not a promise. Injury is a part of what they do. Ryan knows this. He knew that when he signed with the Wild, that at some point in the next thirteen years he would almost certainly see Zach get hurt. He knew he wouldn’t like it. Still, they’ll be fine.

This—worrying from across the locker room—is so much better than talking to Zach on phone while Zach was frustrated off the ice as he patiently rehabbed his knee. Ryan wouldn’t have been able to make that time go any faster, but he listened to Zach complain and he desperately wanted to just be there, to just be close to Zach and tell him that things would get better, that he’d get better with time.

That was when Ryan really knew that he’d do anything to get them to play together, the start of turning what had been a day dream into a plan. It seemed impossible, but Ryan’s stubborn, and so is Zach, and... well, here they are now, playing together.

Ryan loves it. He hates that Zach is in pain, but he loves that he’s here to see it. He can’t do much, but just being in the same place makes it better. Getting hurt is bound to happen, but being together can make it a little bit better. In the moment it may not seem like a whole lot, but it’s enough to make a difference. It’s weird to admit it, but Scandi did, surprisingly, have a point. Ryan’s where he wants to be—where Zach is. 

Ryan will let Zach say he’s fine. Ryan will hand Zach his water as he grimaces and takes his painkillers. They’ll sit on next to each other on the plane, a few rows back from Spurg and Scandi. Everyone will be fine as they fly to Denver. They can win in Denver, or at least they’re going to try. Maybe it won’t work, maybe they’ll lose again, and everything will hurt, but at least they’ll be together. That’s much better than being apart.

**Author's Note:**

> That Scandella tried to practice after getting hit in the head w/ a puck is canon. “Loopy” is the word Russo used. Someday I will maybe write about Scandi being loopy and concussed at practice and talking loudly about Spurg, but don’t hold your breath. It is a good idea though. Russo would facepalm, and Mikko would be second hand embarrassed, and Andrew Brunette would laugh at them a lot. Also, if you stare at pictures of Marco Scandella’s ears for a long time they both seem really normal, which is strange because Russo described it as being really gross. I think the word he used was “horrific.” I totally want pictures, because I’m terrible.
> 
> The Cody McLeod hits on Spurgeon and Brodin aren’t fun to watch, so I’m not going to find links, but they’re both on youtube if you search their names. I really hate Cody McLeod. That’s the fun thing about sports, you can decide to really hate someone for fairly weak reasons.
> 
> All of Scandella and Spurgeon’s injuries are real, and they’ve been hurt more times than this, and sometimes I worry about them and their heads and the Wild’s defensive depth.
> 
> also, confession: when Parise hurt his foot, I was like, “fuck, I’m gonna write hurt/comfort and it’s gonna turn out all foot-fetishy and weird,” which is not my kind of weird, like really not. I’m so happy that it turned out to be this instead, because 2nd pair of impressive height difference and irrational feelings is so totally my kind of weird.  
> confession 2: if you wrote Suter/Parise foot fetish hurt/comfort fic I would totally read it and love you.  
> confession 3: I shouldn’t be allowed to write endnotes at almost three in the morning. Maybe my beta will say to cut this out. Stellarer, this is all on you <3 (but not really. she’s telling me to cut this, but I don’t want to, so there.)


End file.
